We All Need a Fresh Start...

In case you'd like to reconfigure your Mac from the Setup Assistant screen - a bit like the new resolutions we make, and break, on January 1 - or you'd like to give your Mac your 10 year-old niece, here are a couple of tips to tell the Mac to appear to be straight out of the box.

The hard way:

1. Restart in Single User mode (restart holding down apple-S)
2. type:
3. $ mount -uw /
4. $ rm -R /Library/Preferences/
5. $ rm -R /Users/username/
6. $ rm /var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users/username.plist
7. $ rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone

The easy way:

1. Dowload Clean Install.app and run it from one Mac to the one you want to "clean" in Target Disk Mode (hold down the "t" key as you startup, and connect with FireWire).

Unfortunately, the easy way didn't work for me. So, to paraphrase Elvis, "I did it the hard way."